When it comes to creating and sharing content, you know the power of an intranet and the benefits it brings to an organization. It enables your employees to find the content and contacts they need, to create and share information easily, and to interact with each other in brand-new ways. Whether your task is to build a brand-new intranet for your company or business unit, or make improvements to the current model, one job is the same-ensuring management is on board with the idea.

In 1996, the BusinessWeek article "Here Comes the Intranet" (businessweek.com/1996/09/b34641.htm) heralded the many benefits of this new technology that allowed the internal sharing of information behind firewalls. Intranets have evolved, as has the larger web, and lines have blurred between internal and external information and audiences, providing both challenges and opportunities for corporate communicators.This blurring and the advent of many new tools and options has led to the recognition that, yes, communication across all channels, should be strategic-and fluid. This recognition is driving a new concept in communication: social business.

Gamification--applying game design thinking to nongame applications--has been a hot trend in recent years. Advocates claim gamification promotes participation by creating engaging experiences. Using game mechanics to create incentives is nothing new. Creating competition by offering rewards and recognition is a motivational technique that's been employed for centuries. Games tap directly into the cognitive and psychological predispositions of humans to participate in behavior they find interesting, rewarding, and engaging.

When intranets first started to pop up about 20 years ago, they were mainly used by people working in offices on desktop computers. People used intranets to find the latest company news, up-to-date policies, reliable content, and, most importantly, to find and contact other people in their organization. Now, as intranets are transforming into digital workplaces, we see a wider range of information and tools available for people to use (e.g., room bookings, online training, and collaboration tools to share ideas and find out answers to work problems).